I guess I used to be one of these people. I tend to say that I was “atheist,” but technically that means that I didn’t believe that there was a God. And I wasn’t that certain (not that I really thought about it). Or sometimes I say that I was “agnostic,” which means that I didn’t think that it was possible to know if there was or wasn’t a God. And I didn’t know if it was possible or not. I just didn’t look into it.

I suppose the more accurate term was that I was a Nothing. It just wasn’t on my radar at all.

Being me, I read everything. Backs of cereal boxes, whatever. And I like to think around all sides of issues. Since I was a captive audience in my car for a while, I pondered this sign.

The first thing I thought about was this word, “happily.” What do they mean by “happy”? I think they mean it more in the way of “content,” than in the context of “being fulfilled by living according to the purpose for which you were made.” And then I thought of something that ties in with this thought from Pope Francis’s recent interview (but then I forgot what it was, so you’ll have to wait until I can read the interview again, so I can cite it).

Then, I thought about what non-religious people — Nothings, like I was — would think of this billboard. Um. Nothing. It would be immediately dismissed. At least, *I* would have immediately dismissed it as irrelevant. Perhaps atheists, especially those rabid-seeming ones that like to attack people with religious views, might want to check out the website listed, to see if they have anything they can use in their attacks. But largely, I think that it wouldn’t generate much traffic.

What about religious people? I think they would be more likely to check out the website (after all, I did, right?), if nothing else but to see what it was that they were saying. But I don’t think that the billboard would seriously make them question their faith. (I’ll get to my thoughts about the website in a moment.)

So, what was the point of the billboard?

No, really. What was the point?

And their argument in itself leaves much to be desired. “Millions of Americans are living happily without religion.” Okay. Well, millions of Americans are living without arms and legs, too, and are happy. But this doesn’t mean that is an ideal state (to be armless or legless). I (or “people” to be generic) can be happy in all kinds of adverse situations. Conversely, people can be unhappy in ideal situations.

And… The girl pictured on the billboard… didn’t look all that happy.

Overall, my impression was: Advertising FAIL.

But I’ll give them a chance. I’ll check out their website.

At the very top of their page is a large graphic identical to the billboard. Okay.

Then, they have a very flowery description of who they are. For example, “We’re made of the same ingredients as butterflies and blue whales…” While technically accurate, it just seems kind of…

It made me laugh. At them. It did.

For people advocating a position of “science, reason, and secular values” this style of language was WAY too fluffy.

There was also a short video, but I didn’t watch this.

Next, there’s a big call-out box saying, “Be counted among the millions! Get a free sticker and let people know you are living happily without religion.”

Wow! Really? A free sticker?!

Seriously? That just makes me NOT take you seriously. Whether I was on the nonreligious or religious side of things. I mean, can I have mine with sparkles, too, to show that I’m *really* happy?

Then, we have a series of “testimonials” from people who are happy and living without religion. I didn’t think these advocated really one way or the other for or against secular humanism (as they say they are), but I *did* find it amusing that one notes “Whether I’m in the lab investigating cellular respiration…”

Because they have to push the fact that they are FOR SCIENCE. As if religious people are against science or something. I found that humorous. They are trying too hard. And trying to sustain an inaccurate stereotype. At least half of these people look happy in their pictures.

Now, the Q&A section. Their answers are either perplexing, humorous, or nonsensical. What they are NOT is convincing. I don’t say this because I don’t agree with them (I don’t agree with them, but that’s not the point), I say this because I think that if they are to successfully state their position and try to offer a forum for like-minded people to gather, this Q&A section could have been written in a different way so as to be much more effective.

I was in their position at one point. I *get* what they are about. I suppose I can kind of understand that they want to offer a place for people who think as they do to get together, although I’m not sure what purpose this would serve other than basic socialization. I mean, if we are making our own meaning in our lives, it’s not like we would have a common denominator for discussion.

Overall, I found the website and the message to be unconvincing and trying too hard.

They made secular humanism sound like “The Loser Club for Losers.”

^ That sounds mean. But the tone of the website really struck me as something out of “Revenge of the Nerds”. They’ll make their own fraternity! 🙂

Ah, secular humanists. I get you. I love you. But I think you can do better.

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I don’t know about you guys, but I really like Facebook. I don’t *love* it and I don’t *think* I’m addicted to it, but I think of it like the CNN of the things which matter most to me: my friends and family. I’d much rather hear about how their day is going, even if it is going like every other day, than hear about politics or whatever on the news. People and relationships are what matter most in this world and I like that I have a way to interact with many people on a daily basis. Relationships on Facebook may not be as deep as they are in person, but it is much better than the nothing they would be without Facebook.

Ok, enough with the Facebook rant. LOL.

The reason for today’s blog post is from something that a friend shared on her Facebook wall.

“It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for a bird to learn to fly while remaining an egg.

We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.”

~ Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis

This last part, “we must be hatched or go bad,” made me smile. Mostly because of an inside family joke.

See, growing up, my mom knew where my brother’s birth certificate was. But she couldn’t find mine. So, the joke began that I wasn’t actually *born* but hatched (like from an egg) into the family.

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I don’t think that there needs be any dichotomy between science and religion. That said, sometimes there is an excellent opportunity for humor! The following was posted to my cousin’s husband’s Facebook page, and I just had to reply…. 🙂

“Dear Science, Thank God you landed okay! I’ve been praying for you and your mission! BTW, this chicken is delicious! How are those freeze-dried meals? Love, Religion”

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I was innocently sitting in the back pew after Mass on Sunday, when Fr. JJ came in, headed straight for me, thwapped me upside the head with his Day Planner, and then ran away saying, “God told me to do it!”

I tried to swat him back with my bulletin, but it didn’t do very much.

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Recently, a large corporation hired several cannibals to increase their diversity, “You are all part of our team now,” said the Human Resources Rep. during the welcoming briefing. “You get all the usual benefits and you can go to the cafeteria for something to eat, but please don’t eat any employees.” The cannibals promised they would not.

Four weeks later their boss remarked, “You’re all working very hard and I’m satisfied with your work. We have noticed a marked increase in the whole company’s performance. However, one of our secretaries has disappeared. Do any of you know what happened to her?”

The cannibals all shook their heads, “No.” After the boss had left, the leader of the cannibals said to the others, “Which one of you idiots ate the secretary?” A hand rose hesitantly.

“You fool!” the leader said. “For four weeks we’ve been eating managers and no one noticed anything. But NOOOooo, you had to go and eat someone who actually does something.

Teilhard de Chardin:
The chicken was pursuing a teleological upsurge toward final consumation in the Omega Point of Divine Love.

Flannery O’Connor:
The chicken was struck by a truck while crossing the road, but experienced a flash of grace in the instant of its death. I prefer peacocks anyway.

Thomas Aquinas:
Whether the chicken crossed the road?
Objection: It seems that the chicken did not cross the road, for chickens are accustomed to the farmyards that are the source of their food, and the henhouse that is the source of their rest.
On the contrary, “And God said to Noah, ‘Go into the ark, and take with you . . . seven pairs of birds of the air. . . .” — which could not have been accomplished had the chickens not crossed the road to the ark.

Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith:
We don’t care why the chicken crossed the road, as long as it had the right of way and crossed in an approved crosswalk.

St. Lawrence of Rome:
Run, chicken, run! Run from the rotisserie!

St. Paul:
Let’s just hope that the chicken had a life-changing encounter with the risen Christ along the way.

Moses:
And the angel of the Lord went before the chicken, and there was a strong wind, and the traffic parted before the chicken, so that it was able to go into the midst of the road, with the traffic forming a wall on the left and a wall on the right, so that the chicken crossed the road safely. The farmer pursued the chicken into the midst of the road, and the angel of the Lord looked down on the chicken, and the traffic closed in on the farmer, so that the chicken did prevail with the help of the Lord.

Father Daniel Berrigan:
Clearly, the chicken crossed the road as a nonviolent protest of the road’s implication in the military-industrial complex.

Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments:
We’re not sure, but if it was trying to reach across the road to hold hands with another chicken during the Lord’s Prayer, we may have to butcher it.

Ad Hoc Committee to Oversee the Use of the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
The Ad Hoc Committee to Oversee the Use of the Catechism of the Catholic Church declares that this joke is not in conformity with the Catechism of the Catholic Church because 1) it lacks Trinitarian organization; 2) it fails to teach about the judgment of all chickens and the real possibility of hell for all chickens; 3) it fails to mention the fallen nature of the chicken; 4) it fails to use the male personal pronoun to refer to God . . . in fact, it doesn’t mention God at all. Why we are reviewing this? What was the question again?

Job:
…and while we’re getting into it, why did the chicken cross the road, anyway?God:
Who is this who dares darken counsel by asking why the chicken crossed the road? Gird your loins like a man; I will question you, and you will answer me: Where were you when I made the chicken, with its ineffectual yet tasty wings? Did you give the chicken its cluck? Is it by your wisdom that the chicken runs, flapping its wings toward the distant horizon? Did you set the foundations of the earth upon which the road runneth? Answer, for surely you are great in years!Job:
Of what account am I? See, I will lay my hand on my mouth, and ask no more why the chicken crossed the road.

Karl Rahner:
If the chicken has made a fundamental option to cross the road then he will indeed cross the road

G.K. Chesterton:
A chicken decided to go to a foreign country and to invent his own heresies. What the chicken found instead is that in fact he had never left his country and had crossed the road and discovered that his heresies were orthodoxy.

Therese de Lisieux:
If the chicken decides to make himself small, God will lift him up and place him on the other side of the road.

Sister Joan D. Chittister:
The chicken crossed the road as a sign of prophetic road crossing to get away from the male dominated hierarchy

Saint Benedict:
The chicken crossed the road to get away from me even though I assured him I was not the Benedict associated with eggs.

Saint Jerome:
The chicken crossed the road since some fool left the vulgate open and he escaped.

Saint Ignatius:
The chicken crossed the road out of obedience to the Holy Father. The chicken should always be disposed to believe that crossing the road is good, if the hierarchy of the Church so decides.

Blessed Mother Teresa:
The chicken crossed the road to help the poorest of the poor chickens.

Saint John of the Cross:
The chicken crossed the road because he realized he was attached to this side of the road. The chicken that is attached to one side of the road however much good there may be in it, will not arrive at the liberty of divine union.

Saint Anthony the Great:
Obviously the chicken crossed the road to get to the desert to purge himself because he suffered from boredom, laziness, and the phantoms of hens.

Saint Domenic:
I suspect that the chicken had Albigensian sympathies since he crossed the road when he saw me coming to preach.

Saint Anthony of Padua:
I have no idea why the chicken crossed the road, but fish I have experience preaching to.

Saint Joseph:
The chicken received a dream over the night warning him to cross the road.